FOX  HUNTING 

IN 

AMERICA 


4llen  Potts 


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JOHNA.SEAVERNS 


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OFF   FOR  THE   HUNT 


FOX  HUNTING  IN 
AMERICA 


BY 


ALLEN     POTTS 


COPYRIGHT.     1911.     BY      ALLEN     POTTS.     RICHMOND,     VA 


Washington 
the  carnahan  press 

1912 


TO 
G.      R.     P. 

M.    F.    H.    OF   CASTLE    HILL    HUNT 


HAPPY    CREEK    FARM 

ALBEMARLE    CO.,  VA. 

1911 


THIS   EDITION    IS   LIMITED  TO  ONE  HUNDRED 
COPIES,  OF  WHICH  THIS  COPY   IS 


NO. 3 


6^. 


not     considered 


OX  hunting  in  America,  as  well  as  in 
Great  Britain,  had  its  beginning  around 
the  year  I  700.  In  England  long  be- 
fore that  time,  and  indeed  as  early  as 
161  I,  the  fox  was  hunted  by  the  farmer 
and  the  petty  squire,  but  the  pursuit  was 
really  sport  and  was  treated  with 
great  contempt  by  the  sportsmen  of  those  days, 
who  held  that  stag  hounds  gave  royal  recreation  and  that 
the  chase  of  the  hare  came  next  in  importance.  In  America, 
however  (and  when  I  say  America,  I  speak  of  the  colonies 
of  Virginia  and  Maryland  for  those  early  days),  the  sport 
of  hunting  any  animal  with  hounds  cannot  very  well  have 
taken  place  until  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century  (1690) 
for  the  reason  that  the  first  settlements  were  upon  the  banks 
of  streams,  and  for  many  years  thereafter  there  were  no 
fields  over  which  hounds  could  run  and,  indeed,  the  set- 
tlers possessed  neither  hounds  nor  horses,  even  if  the  coun- 
try had  been  adapted  to  hunting. 

The  colony  in  Virginia,  founded  at  Jamestown  in  1  607. 
was  almost  swept  away  by  the  great  massacre  in  1622,  and 
for  a  year  thereafter  the  colonists  lived  within  stockades. 
never  daring  to  wander  beyond  sight  of  a  primitive  fort. 
There  is  no  record  that  fox  hounds  existed  in  the  colony  at 
that  time  and,  indeed,  the  records  of  the  Virginia  Com- 
pany from  1619  to  1624  contained  no  mention  of  foxes, 
or  hounds,  or  of  huntmg. 

In  Maryland,  where  the  first  settlement  was  founded  at 
St.  Mary's,  near  the  present  site  of  Annapolis,  in  1634,  the 
same  state  of  affairs  existed,  and  it  seems,  therefore,  hardly 
probable  that  the  statement  made  in  Outing  of  October, 
1897,  by  Mr.  Hanson  Hiss,  in  his  very  interesting  article. 
"The  Beginning  of  Fox  Hunting  in  America,"  to  the  effect 
that  in  Queen  Anne  County  the  first  fox  hunt  in  America 
took  place  in  the  year  I  650,  is  correct.  That  fox  hunting 
in  America  had  its  beginning  in  the  colonies  of  Virginia  and 
Maryland  is  undisputed,  for  the  reason  that  the  Quakers  of 


Page  three 


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Pennsylvania,  the  Dutch  of  New  York,  and  the  Puritans 
of  New  England  looked  askance  at  the  frivolities  of  this 
wicked  sport  and,  indeed,  although  the  sentiment  against 
fox  hunting  in  Pennsylvania  was  withdrawn  shortly  after 
the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century,  the  Quakers  of  Long 
Island  practically  forbade  the  sport  in  New  York  until  the 
period  following  the  Revolutionary  war,  and  in  New  Eng- 
land there  was  no  fox  hunting  until  the  conclusion  of  the 
Civil  war. 

It  is  very  true  that  in  all  the  colonies  settled  at  that  time 
gray  foxes  were  plentiful,  but  except  in  Virginia,  Mary- 
land, the  Carolinas,  and  the  eastern  portion  of  Pennsyl- 
vania foxes  were  hunted  for  the  bounty  that  was  placed 
upon  their  heads,  and  were  hunted  with  guns,  and  not  run 
down  with  hounds.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  there  is 
a  wide  difference  of  opinion  relative  to  the  red  fox  in 
America.  The  Century  Dictionary  declares  that  "the 
common  fox  of  North  America  is  very  similar  to  the  red 
fox  of  Europe,  being  probably  not  specifically  distinct, 
while  almost  every  writer  on  sport  declares  there  were  no 
red  foxes  in  America  until  they  were  imported  from  abroad, 
the  gray  fox  being  the  only  genus  found  in  this  country  by 
the  settlers.  There  has  for  years  been  a  legend  to  the 
effect  that  red  foxes  were  first  brought  to  America  from 
England  by  the  British  officers  stationed  in  New  York,  and 
that  the  animals  were  turned  loose  on  Long  Island,  escap- 
ing to  the  mainland,  however,  during  a  hard  winter,  when 
the  Sound  was  frozen  over,  and  coming  South  by  way  of 
New  Jersey.  Another  interesting  story,  told  by  a  writer 
in  Volume  I  of  the  Turf  Register,  is  that  the  red  fox  was 
imported  to  America  from  Germany,  and  that  not  until 
the  year  1814  was  any  fox  seen  in  Virginia  near  the  James 
River,  except  the  native  gray.  The  writer,  whose  letter  is 
dated  Richmond,  October  13,  1829,  declares  that  this 
first  red  fox  was  chased  in  Goochland  for  three  years  and 
finally  given  up  as  a  bad  proposition,  because  it  was  im- 
possible  for   the  best   hounds   of   the   neighborhood   to   even 


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run  him  to  earth.  The  true  story,  however,  of  the  impor- 
tation of  the  red  fox  to  America,  is  evidently  the  one  told 
by  Mr.  Hiss,  and  verified  by  Colonel  Skinner,  editor  of 
the  Turf  Register,  who  says  that  in  the  month  of  August 
in  the  year  1  730,  in  the  County  of  Talbot,  eight  prosperous 
tobacco  planters  of  Maryland  discussed  fox  hunting  over 
huge  bowls  of  mint  julep  and  determined  to  bring  over 
English  foxes  in  order  to  secure  the  same  sport  that  many 
of  them  had  enjoyed  in  England.  The  commission  was  given 
to  the  captain  of  the  schooner  ''Monaccas^,''  and  on  his 
next  trip  from  Liverpool  he  brought  to  Maryland  eight  pair 
of  red  foxes,  consigned  to  a  Mr.  Smith.  The  description 
of  the  entertainment,  which  took  place  when  the  foxes  were 
liberated,  is  worthy  of  interest.  A  great  ball  was  given 
and  all  the  gentry  of  the  province  were  invited  to  be  pres- 
ent, while  the  country  bumpkin  also  viewed  the  festivities 
from  a  distance.  The  next  day  there  were  horse  races 
between  the  thoroughbreds  from  Virginia  and  Maryland, 
after  which  the  red  gentry  were  released. 

So  it  seems  that  Maryland  was  the  home  of  the  red  fox 
until  the  winter  of  1  779,  when  the  English  fox  crossed 
over  the  frozen  waters  of  the  Chesapeake  Bay  and  the 
Potomac  River  into  Virginia,  and  so  made  his  way  south, 
displacing  in  a  number  of  localities  the  native  gray  fox. 
It  is  a  peculiar  coincidence  that  the  importers  of  the  red 
fox  into  Maryland  were  residents  of  Talbot  County,  the 
word  "talbot"  being  a  slang  expression  used  in  England 
to   signify  a   hound. 

Harking  back  to  the  beginning  of  fox  hunting,  it  is  only 
proper  to  say  a  word  of  fox  hunting  in  general.  The  sport 
seems  to  belong  practically  to  the  English-speaking  race, 
for  while  there  are  packs  of  hounds  maintained  in  France 
and  in  Italy,  the  hunts  of  these  countries  are  of  a  theatrical 
kind,  while  the  sport  in  Great  Britain  and  America  is  bred 
in  the  bone  of  the  people  and  has  played  an  important  part 
in  the  affairs  of  these  countries,  the  greatest  statesmen,  sol- 
diers and  jurists  of  England  and  America  having  been 
ardent  and  earnest  fox  hunters. 


Page  seven 


CHAPTER   II. 
In  England. 

Speaking  first  of  the  mother  country,  from  which  the 
hounds  of  America  were  brought  and  from  which  the  red 
fox  of  America  was  imported,  it  seems  there  was  no  regular 
pack  of  fox  hounds  maintained  in  England  until  about  the 
year  1  690,  when  Lord  Arundel,  of  Wardour,  swung  his 
pack  from  the  hare  to  the  fox.  In  a  letter  printed  in  The 
Quarterly  Review  in  1 832,  Lord  Arundel,  a  descendant 
of  the  noble  sportsman  of  1  690,  writing  to  Mr.  Apperley, 
says:  "A  pack  of  fox  hounds  were  kept  by  my  ancestor, 
Lord  Arundel,  between  the  year  1 690  and  1  700,  as  I 
have  memoranda  to  prove."  This  pack  was  hunted  in 
Wiltshire  and  Hampshire  Counties,  in  England,  and  was 
finally  sold  to  Mr.  Hugo  Meynell,  known  as  the  father  of 
modern  fox  hunting. 

Mr.  Thomas  Boothby  is  also  a  claimant  for  the  honor 
of  having  kept  the  first  regular  pack  of  fox  hounds,  and 
it  is  known  that  he  hunted  in  Leicestershire  County  before 
1 700,  but  little  is  known  of  the  style  or  extent  of  his 
performances.  His  hunting  horn  still  exists,  and  upon  it 
is  the  inscription:  "With  this  horn  he  hunted  the  first 
pack  of  fox  hounds  then  in  England,  for  fifty-five  years." 
The  old  gentleman  was  an  out  and  out  sportsman  and  very 
religiously  inclined,  and  in  order  to  bring  together  the 
church  and  the  hunt  he  presented  to  his  parish  a  chime 
of  bells  tuned  to  resemble  the  sound  of  hounds  in  full  cry. 
To  these  two  sportsmen,  then.  Lord  Arundel  and  Mr. 
Boothby,  belongs  the  honor  of  introducing  fox  huntmg  as 
a  real  sport  into  England,  although  it  was  not  until  later 
that  the  fox  became  the  fashionable  and  aristocratic  pursuit. 

Long  before  the  days  of  Lord  Arundel  the  fox  had  been 
hunted  in  England,  but,  as  I  have  said  before,  only  by 
the  farmer  class  and  the  petty  squires  whose  purses  could 
not  stand  the  strain  of  keeping  buck  hounds  or  of  taking 
part    in    the    noble    chase    after    the   stag.      These    men    of 


Page  nine 


moderate  means  chased  sometimes  the  hare  and  sometimes 
the  fox,  and  again  the  otter,  taking  their  fun  where  they 
found  it  and  enjoying  their  sport  none  the  less  because  it 
was  not  considered  fashionable. 

In  1611,  Jervase  Markham,  in  his  "Country  Content- 
ments," says:  "The  fox  and  the  badger  are  less  cunning 
than  any  other  animal  pursued  by  the  hound."  But  Min- 
cheu,  in  1599,  had  written:  "Whosoeuer  loues  good  wine 
hunts  the  foxe  once  a  yeere,"  showing  that  even  at  the 
beginning  of  the  seventeenth  century  the  fox,  although 
held  in  low  esteem,  was  hunted.  As  late  as  1  683,  Rich- 
ard Blome,  in  his  "Gentlemen's  Recreation,"  declares  that 
the  chase  of  the  fox  is  not  so  full  of  diversity  as  that  of 
the  hare. 

Those  who  hunted  the  fox  before  1 690  followed  on 
foot,  and  there  is  no  record  of  any  fox  hunt  upon  which 
men  on  horse  back  followed.  A  price  was  set  upon  a 
fox's  head  and  vulpicide  was  not  recognized  as  an  offence. 
The  solicitor  general  of  Great  Britain  in  1641  declared 
that,  "Hares  and  deer  are  beasts  of  the  chase,  but  foxes  and 
wolves  are  only  beasts  of  prey." 

Even  after  an  impetus  had  been  given  the  sport  of  fox 
hunting  by  the  Arundel  and  Boothby  and  Meynell  packs, 
it  was  not  until  the  end  of  Queen  Anne's  reign  that  fox 
hunting  had  become  a  recognized  sport  in  England,  and 
for  years  the  packs  were  maintained  very  much  like  those 
in  Virginia  before  the  Civil  War.  It  was  the  custom  to 
hunt  at  break  of  day,  and  frequently  the  sportsmen  donned 
their  hunting  clothes  for  dinner,  sat  at  the  table  until  near 
daybreak  and  then  mounted  their  horses  and  rode  away  to 
the  chase.  The  pack  was  scattered  through  the  neighbor- 
hood and  was  called  together  by  the  huntsman  sounding 
the  horn  from  some  high  hill  or  going  around  and  col- 
lecting the  various  couples  from  the  farmer  attendants  who 
fed  and  cared  for  them. 

A  most  interesting  story  is  told  of  how  fox  hunting 
changed  in  a  single  morning  from  a  sport  of  second  degree 


Page  ten 


to  the  one  of  first  importance.  The  fifth  Duke  of  Beau- 
fort in  1  762  was  out  stag  hunting  and,  while  passing  with 
his  stag  hounds  through  a  wood  jumped  a  fox,  which 
faced  the  open  country  and  which  the  pack  pursued  with 
such  music  and  vigor  that  the  Duke  declared  he  would 
never  again  hunt  the  stag,  and  thereup>on  the  Badminton 
pack  became  fox  hounds  and  have  remained  so  to  this  day. 

Another  story  is  told  of  the  Duke  of  Grafton,  who 
hunted  foxes  nearly  thirty  years  before  the  Duke  of  Beau- 
fort made  the  sport  fashionable.  The  Duke  of  Grafton 
on  hunting  mornings  would  go  down  from  London  at  day- 
break to  his  place  at  Croydon,  and  in  so  going  was  forced 
to  cross  the  Thames  at  Westmmster  ferry.  The  delays  of 
the  ferry  annoyed  his  grace  to  such  an  extent  that  he  had 
a  bill  passed  in  I  736  to  erect  Westminster  bridge,  so 
that  he  would  not  be  retarded  on  his  way  to  follow  hounds. 
To  his  grace  of  Grafton  also  belongs  the  distinction  of 
being  the  first  sportsman  to  hunt  the  bagged  fox,  for  in 
order  to  always  insure  a  day's  run,  he  had  a  servant 
carry  a  live  fox  in  a  hamper  so  that  if  hounds  could  not 
find  in  covert  they  would  at  least  discover  a  "bagman." 

To  the  love  of  fox  hunting  must  be  attributed  the  Sat- 
urday holiday  of  Parliament,  for  Sir  Robert  Walpole 
brought  this  holiday  about  so  that  he  might  hunt  the  fox 
at  least  one  day  a  week. 

It  might  be  mentioned  that  at  least  two  men  in  England 
in  those  early  days  hunted  for  more  than  half  a  century — 
Mr.  Thomas  Boothby  for  fifty  years  and  Mr.  John  Ward, 
the  master  of  Pytchley,  for  fifty-seven  years,  and  I  will 
add  here  that  at  least  one  Virginian  has  hunted  as  long — 
Mr.  Julius  Octavus  Thomas,  of  Four  Square,  in  Isle  of 
Wight,  Virginia,  has  kept  hounds  and  hunted  for  fifty- 
six   years. 

In  England,  and  I  might  say  in  Ireland  and  Scotland 
as  well,  the  sport  has  grown  to  enormous  proportions.  It  is 
said  that  during  the  present  year  there  are  no  less  than  five 
hundred  packs  of  hounds  maintamed  in  the  United  King- 


Page  eleven 


'ifi,*^ 


\s>^ 


Type  of  English  foxhound 


Another  type  of  English  foxhound 


dom,  and  most  of  these  packs  are  hunted  regularly  two  or 
three  times  a  week  and  with  great  form  and  ceremony. 
Hounds  are  raised  as  carefully  as  horses  and  their  train- 
ing is  given  as  great  attention.  Foxes  are  protected  to 
such  an  extent  than  a  man  would  as  soon  commit  murder 
as  kill  a  fox.  In  a  word,  fox  hunting  is  the  greatest  sport 
in  Great  Britain  today,  and  it  is  great  because  it  has 
received  the  attention  and  care  and  thought  of  the  very 
best   and  most  intelligent  people  of  Great   Britain. 

Although  fox  hunting  in  America  can  hark  back  almost 
to  the  time  of  the  beginning  of  the  sport  in  England,  yet 
America  cannot  boast  of  any  such  progress  as  Great 
Britain  has  achieved,  and  the  reasons  for  this  are  so  ap- 
parent that  it  is  hardly  necessary  to  mention  them.  In 
England  there  has  been  for  generations  a  great  leisure  class 
whose  wealth  permitted  its  members  to  indulge  in  all  man- 
ner of  recreations  and  to  give  all  of  their  time  and  atten- 
tion to  the  pastime  which  attracted  their  fancy,  while  in 
America  the  struggle  for  existence  has  been  so  great,  the 
fight  for  wealth  has  been  so  insistent,  that  Americans  have 
been  forced  to  snatch  a  few  hours  here  and  there  for  play 
between  the  times  of  more  serious  occupation.  It  is  very 
true  that  the  planters  of  Virginia  and  Maryland  were 
wealthy  and  that  they  belonged  to  the  leisure  class,  but 
the  country  was  vast  and  thinly  settled,  the  servants  were 
negroes,  and  the  country  gentleman  took  his  pleasures  more 
indolently  than  his  cousins  across  the  sea. 

In  addition,  and  probably  more  important  than  any  of 
the  reasons  given,  is  that  Great  Britain,  despite  the  wars 
in  which  she  has  been  engaged,  has  fox  hunted  as  regularly 
as  the  season  came  around,  and  therefore  there  has  been  no 
interruption  in  the  sport  and  the  hunts  have  grown  in  num- 
ber and  importance.  The  only  check  that  fox  hunting  has 
received  has  been  the  building  up  of  the  open  country  and 
the  appearance  of  wire  where  formerly  there  was  only  open 
meadow  or  an  occasional  line  of  timber. 


Page  thirteen 


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CHAPTER  III. 
In  America. 

Fox  hunting  in  America  should  be  divided  into  three  dis- 
tinct periods,  each  period,  it  is  interesting  to  note,  being 
ended  by  war  and  each  period  marking  a  growing  interest 
in  the  sport.  The  first  period  dates  from  colonial  days  up 
to  the  Revolutionary  war  in  1  775.  During  that  period  fox 
hunting  was  engaged  in  only  by  the  people  of  Virginia, 
Maryland,  eastern  Pennsylvania,  western  New  Jersey, 
North  and  South  Carolina  and  southeastern  New  York. 
This  is  easily  accounted  for  when  one  recalls  that  the  sport 
did  not  appeal  to  the  Puritans  of  New  England,  nor  to  the 
Dutch  of  New  York,  nor  to  the  Quakers  of  Pennsylvania. 
For  the  most  part  the  sport  was  confined  to  Virginia  and 
Maryland,  there  being  but  little  interest  in  fox  hunting  in 
the  Carolinas,  where  deer  hunting  was  in  vogue. 

Around  Philadelphia  there  was  one  known  pack  which 
was  maintained  by  the  gentlemen  of  Philadelphia  and  the 
farmers  of  New  Jersey  across  the  river,  while  in  New  York 
there  was  but  one  pack,  of  which  Mr.  John  Evers  was 
master.  This  pack  was  kept  at  Hempstead  and  was 
brought  over  from  England  along  with  horses  and  servants 
around  1  770.  Colonel  George  Washington  was  one  of 
the  subscribers  and  the  British  officers  and  the  residents 
of  New  York  were  the  patrons  of  the  sport.  The  war 
of  the  Revolution  put  an  end,  however,  to  fox  hunting 
practically  until  the  surrender  of  the  British  at  Yorktown 
in   1781,  when  there  began  the  second  period  of  the  sport. 

This  period,  beginning  in  1781,  lasted  until  the  Civil 
war  in  1861,  and  during  that  time  fox  hunting  engaged 
the  attention  of  many  people  in  Virginia,  Maryland,  North 
and  South  Carolina,  Pennsylvania,  Kentucky,  and  of  a 
very  few  people  in  New  York,  Georgia  and  Florida.  The 
sport  was  still  unknown  in  New  England,  and  really  had 
its  home  in  Virginia,  Maryland  and  Pennsylvania.  In 
New  York  there  was  but  one  pack  maintained,  known  as 
the   Brooklyn   Hunt  Club,   founded  in    1781,   the  year  of 

Page  fifteen 


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Lord  Cornwallis'  surrender,  and  of  but  short  duration. 
In  Georgia  and  Florida  the  sport  was  carried  on  for  the 
most  part  by  Virginians,  who  took  their  packs  south, 
notably  the  Henrys,  who  in  this  way  introduced  into 
Georgia  and  Florida  the  famous  Henry  hound,  named  for 
Patrick  Henry. 

In  Kentucky  a  number  of  packs  sprung  up,  among  them 
the  well  known  July  and  Walker  hounds,  and  in  Ten- 
nessee a  similar  state  of  sport  prevailed.  So  it  was  that 
Virginia  and  Maryland  with  Pennsylvania  were  the  home 
of  fox  hunting  during  this  second  period,  and  I  shall  later 
give  an  account  in  some  fashion  of  the  nature  of  the  sport. 
The  Civil  war  put  an  end  to  this  period  in  1861,  and 
there  was  no  hunting  practically  in  the  United  States  until 
after  1865,  when  packs  that  had  been  practically  dispersed 
were  again  assembled,  hounds  were  imported  from  Eng- 
land and  the  sport  was  put  on  a  firmer  basis  than  ever 
before.  The  sport  was  continued  in  the  States  in  which 
hounds  had  been  already  run,  and  in  addition  packs  were 
organized  in  the  District  of  Columbia,  in  Massachusetts,  in 
Ohio,  New  Hampshire,  Vermont,  Missouri,  Illinois,  and 
over  on  the  Pacific  Coast  in  the  States  of  Washington  and 
Oregon.  The  style  of  hunting  largely  changed  to  the 
English  method,  many  hounds  and  some  horses  were  im- 
ported, English  hunt  servants  were  brought  over,  and  pink 
coats  for  the  first  time  made  their  picturesque  appearance 
in  the  hunting  field. 

This  in  brief  is  a  statement  of  the  three  periods  of  the 
sport  of  fox  hunting  in  America,  although  it  does  not 
include  the  sport  in  Canada,  where  as  early  as  1826  the 
Montreal  Hunt  had  been  founded  and  the  Toronto  Hunt 
in  1850.  These  two  hunts,  therefore,  belong  to  the  second 
period,  but  the  London  Hunt  of  Canada,  founded  in  1885, 
belongs  to  the  third  period. 

Having  thus  shown  how  the  various  sections  of  the 
country  gradually  took  an  interest  in  the  sport,  I  return  to 
fox  hunting  in  colonial  days. 


Page  seventeen 


o 
o 
> 


^  S  g 
H  1 


» 


s 
cs 


IS 


CHAPTER    IV. 

In  Colonial  Da^s. 

The  first  mention  of  hounds  in  Virginia  occurs  in  the 
court  records  of  Northampton  County  in  1  69 1 ,  mentioned 
in  Dr.  Phihp  Alexander  Bruce's  "Social  Life  of  Virginia 
in  the  Seventeenth  Century."  Mike  Dixon,  living  in  the 
county  of  Northampton,  was  called  before  a  magistrate 
upon  a  complaint  that  he  kept  a  pack  of  "dogs,"  and  his 
house  being  near  the  road,  these  "dogs"  ran  out  and  at- 
tacked passersby,  greatly  to  their  terror  and  injury.  Mike 
Dixon  appeared  before  the  magistrate  and  plead  that  his 
pack  of  "dogs"  was  necessary  to  the  safety  of  the  colonists 
in  that  they  destroyed  "foxes,  wolves  and  other  varmint," 
and  therefore  it  would  be  better  to  re-survey  the  road, 
running  it  at  a  greater  distance  from  his  house,  than  for  him 
to  destroy  his  pack.  It  seems  that  his  honor,  the  justice, 
agreed  with  Mike  Dixon  and  that  the  road  was  moved 
back  so  that  the  hounds  might  be  undisturbed.  If  hounds 
were  held  in  such  esteem  in  I  69 1 ,  it  is  only  fair  to  sup- 
pose that  some  time  previous  to  this  date  "dogs,"  as  they 
were  called,  were  known  in  the  colony.  When  they  were 
first  brought  over,  I  have  been  unable  to  discover  for,  as 
I  have  said,  the  records  of  the  Virginia  Company  make 
no  mention  of  any  importation. 

The  earliest  settlers  had  but  few  horses  and  had  but 
little  chance  of  huntmg,  for  they  traveled  by  boat  ex- 
clusively, and  any  hunting  that  was  done  was  in  the  woods 
near  the  stockades.  Beverley,  in  his  "History  of  Vir- 
ginia," written  about  1  705  or  I  706,  mentions  the  fact 
that  the  settlers  kept  "mungrils  or  swift  dogs,  which  are 
used,"  he  says,  "for  pursuit  of  the  fox,  the  raccoon  and 
opossum,"  and  he  tells  how  in  every  pack  of  these  "mun- 
grils" are  three  or  four  large  dogs  which  protect  the  pack 
from  the  attack  of  bears  and  wolves  and  other  large  wild 
animals.  The  hunts  in  those  days  were  evidently  under- 
taken at  night  and  on  foot,  but  the  only  account  of  what 


Page  nineteen 


r                                                       •Z^fei^ 

i 

actually  took  place  is  descnbed  by  Beverley  in  the^e  words: 
"And  then  the  sport  increases,  to  see  the  vermin  encounter 
those  htde  curs."'  That  the  packs  were  very  small  is 
sho\%-n  by  the  French  version  of  Beverley,  which  sjjeaks  of 
the  pursuit  of  the  fox  and  coon  "avec  trois  ou  quatre  petits 
chiens."  The  "mungrils,"  or  "Httle  curs,"  mentioned  by 
Beverley  are  e%"idently  the  Elnghsh  beagle,  while  the  "large 
dogs  "  are  Elnghsh  stag  hounds  or  bloodhoimds. 

Just  here  it  may  be  well  to  say  that  of  course  all  Ameri- 
can hounds  were  imported  from  Ejigland.  In  those  early 
days  there  were  four  classes  of  hounds  for  hunting — the 
stag  hound,  the  fox  beagle,  the  Southern  hound  (called 
Southern  on  account  of  its  being  bred  in  the  southern  part 
of  England),  which  resembles  a  bloodhound,  and  the  harri- 
ers, or  beagle,  used  for  hunting  hares.  The  old-fashioned 
t>-pe  of  Americcm  hound  is  for  the  most  p)art  descended 
from  the  Southern  hound,  or  from  the  cross  of  the  beagle 
and  the  Southern  hound,  but  from  time  to  time  English 
hounds  were  imported,  and  up  to  the  beginning  of  the  nine- 
teenth centurv"  the  .Amencain  tvpe  greatly  resembled  the  Ejig- 
lish  hound  of  the  pro\-inces — that  is  to  say,  the  American 
hound  was  practically  a  coimterpart  of  the  Enghsh  hound. 
\%hjch  was  trencher-fed  and  which  was  o\sTied  by  the  petty 
squire  and  farmer  class  of  Great  Britain.  Some  Elnghsh 
writers  declare  that  the  EJogUsh  hound  is  a  cross  of  the 
bloodhound  and  the  pointer,  but  it  seems  to  be  the  concensus 
of  the  best  \sTiters  that  the  fox  hound  of  today  is  a  mixture 
of  bloodhoimd,  grayhound  and  bulldog. 

An  early  \  irginia  writer  describmg  a  \  irgima  hoimd, 
says:  "It  resembles  a  cross  between  a  male  wolf  and  ein 
ordmarv'  bitch." 

It  is  the  opinion  no\s-  of  spwrtsmen  that  the  gray  fox  only 
was  hunted  in  \  irginia  up  to  the  year  1  779,  but  it  is  inter- 
esting to  note  that  Dr.  Bruce,  in  his  "Economic  History  of 
\  irginia  in  the  Seventeenth  Centurv,  '  declares  that  gray 
foxes  were  abundant  and  that  red  foxes  were  also  found. 
This   statement   is   in    accord   \snth   Goodman's    "American 


Page  twenty-one 


TYPE  OF  AMERICAN  HOTNU 

Notice  the  diflferenee  in  size  and  in  feet  from  the  English. 


A   murning  meet  in   front   of  (ieorjje  <ioiild's   home  at    I.nl<e\vond, 
New   Jersej.       The    [kkU   is    KiiM:lish. 


Natural  History,"  which  states  that  the  red  fox  is  found  in 
the  Middle  and  Southern  States. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  facts,  if  true,  that  I  have 
discovered,  is  in  William  Byrd's  story  of  "The  Dividing 
Line,"  printed  in  1  728,  which  states  that  both  foxes  and 
wolves  abound  in  the  colony  of  Virginia ;  that  the  wolves 
are  harmless  and  run  at  the  approach  of  man,  but  that  the 
foxes  hide  in  the  briers  and  rush  out  and  attack  the  passerby. 
As  the  Virginia  foxes  of  that  period  were  of  the  gray 
genus,  I  cannot  help  thinking  that  Colonel  Byrd  has  made 
a  mistake,  and  should  have  said  that  the  foxes  run  at  the 
approach  of  man  and  that  the  wolves  hide  in  the  briers  and 
attack  the  passersby. 

Possibly  the  most  entertaining  account  of  fox  hunting 
in  Maryland  in  the  early  days  is  that  in  the  two  articles 
which  appeared  in  Outing  in  October  and  November,  1897, 
written  by  Mr.  Hanson  Hiss,  descendant  of  one  of  the 
hard-riding  men  after  hounds  around  Baltimore.  It  seems 
more  than  probable  that  Mr.  Hiss  is  mistaken  in  his  asser- 
tion that  fox  hunting  was  a  sport  in  Queen  Anne  County, 
in  Maryland,  as  early  as  1 650,  for  the  reason  that  it  is 
hardly  probable  that  within  sixteen  years  after  the  found- 
ing of  the  colony  at  St.  Marys  the  country  could  have 
been  in  condition  for  huntmg  and  that  hounds  should  have 
been  impnsrted.  Be  that  as  it  may,  it  is  certainly  a  fact 
that  America  owes  Maryland  a  debt  of  gratitude  for  hav- 
ing imported  the  red  fox  in  1  730.  Scarf,  in  his  "History 
of  Maryland,"  describes  the  Maryland  fox  hound  as  one 
of  great  toughness  and  endurance,  and  a  cross  between  the 
English  fox  hound  and  the  Irish  stag  hound,  the  result 
resembling  a  mongrel,  but  better  suited  to  the  roughness 
of  the  country  than  the  pure  bred  hound.  It  is  certain  that 
the  lure  of  the  red  fox  and  the  sport  that  he  furnished 
drew  many  Virginia  sportsmen  to  Maryland  who  craved 
the  excitement  of  a  straightaway  chase  after  the  red  fox 
rather  than  the  dodging  and  twisting  of  the  gray. 

Scarf,   in  his  second  volume  of  the  "History  of   Mary- 


Page  twenty-three 


_.     3j 


«     08 


3;  -M 


0. 


land,"  describes  the  fox  hunting  life  of  those  days  in  the 
following  quaint  fashion: 

"When  night  would  overtake  them,  they  would  be  sure 
of  a  simple  but  hearty  welcome  at  the  nearest  manor- 
house,  where,  no  matter  how  many  guests  there  might  be 
already,  there  was  always  room  for  more.  Stabling  was 
always  to  be  had,  and  there  would  be  plenty  of  pone  for 
the  tired  hounds.  In  the  evening  there  would  be  an  abun- 
dance of  old-fashioned  punch  for  the  men  and  dancing  to 
the  music  of  Uncle  Billy's  ever-ready  fiddle.  The  next 
morning  the  bugle  would  sound,  'mount  and  away,'  and 
refreshed,  invigorated  and  full  of  pleasant  anticipations,  this 
gay  party  of  happy  young  fox  hunters  would  start  out  again 
to  repeat  the  performance.  In  those  early  days  the  young 
folks  knew  no  restraint  and,  consequently,  no  false  modesty, 
and  all  led  a  life  of  pure  and  untrammeled  freedom.  " 

So  hunting  continued  in  Virginia  and  Maryland  up  to 
the  time  of  the  war  of  the  Revolution,  there  being  a  noble 
rivalry  between  the  two  States  as  to  which  of  its  gentry 
had  the  fastest  horse  and  the  swiftest  hound.  The  story 
is  told  that  Mr.  Carroll,  of  CarroUton,  once  remarked  to 
General  "Lighthorse  Harry"  Lee,  that  fox  hunting  was 
the  grandest  sport  ever  invented,  taken  part  in  by  man 
and  sanctioned  by  an  all-wise  Providence.  "True,"  re- 
plied General  Lee;  "but  it  is  hell  if  your  nag  is  slow  and 
your  hounds  are  poor,"  to  which  Mr.  Carroll  replied:  "I 
refer,  sir,  to  fox  hunting  in  Maryland." 

In  these  hunts  around  Baltimore  Colonel  Washington, 
Generals  Braddock,  Lafayette,  Judge  Pinckney,  Chief  Jus- 
tice Taney,  Alexander  Hamilton  and  a  host  of  others  took 
part,  but  it  was  not  until  the  year  1818  that  the  Baltimore 
Club  was  organized.  Prior  to  that  time  the  hounds  in 
Maryland  and  Virginia  were  individual  packs  owned  by 
country  gentlemen  who  either  hunted  their  pack  for  the 
pleasure  of  their  friends  or  joined  their  packs  with  those 
of   their   neighbors   on   great  occasions.      It  is   a   matter   of 


Page  twenty-five 


ON  THE  WAY  TO  A  MEET 

The  hounds  are  half-bred    (Anieriean-English). 


considerable  interest  that  in  these  days  the  ladies  rode  to 
hounds  much  more  frequently  than  at  the  present  time,  and 
it  was  not  an  unusual  thing  for  a  dozen  or  more  ladies  in 
their  flowing  habits  to  follow  over  fence  and  ditch  with 
the  best  of  the  hunters. 


Page  twenty-seven 


CHAPTER    V. 
In   Washington's    Time. 

Mr.  George  Washington  Parke  Custis,  of  Arlington, 
writes  in  the  American  Turf  Register  of  September,  1829, 
a  delightful  account  of  General  Washington  as  a  fox 
hunter.  He  says  that  Colonel  Washington,  between  the 
years  1  759  and  1  774,  devoted  all  the  time  that  he  could 
spare  to  the  pleasures  of  the  chase.  The  Colonel,  as  he 
was  at  that  time,  cared  little  for  shooting  or  fishing,  but 
was  a  bold  and  eager  fox  hunter,  devoted  to  his  horses 
no  less  than  to  his  hounds.  The  kennels  at  Mt.  Vernon 
were  about  a  hundred  yards  from  the  old  family  vault, 
set  in  a  large  enclosure  in  which  was  a  spring  of  running 
water.  Colonel  Washington  inspected  his  kennels  morning 
and  evening,  just  as  he  did  his  stables,  and  was  very 
careful  to  draft  his  pack  so  that  no  hounds  remained  who 
over  ran  or  who  lagged  behind.  It  was  his  delight  to 
entertain  sportsmen  from  Maryland  and  Virginia  for  weeks 
at  a  time.  The  "Father  of  His  Country"  is  pictured  as 
always  superbly  mounted  and  in  a  sporting  costume — a  blue 
coat,  scarlet  waistcoat,  buckskin  breeches,  top  boots,  velvet 
cap  and  carrying  a  crop  with  a  long  lash.  His  huntsman 
was  his  friend  and  neighbor,  "Billy"  Lee,  and  many  a 
gray  fox  went  down  before  the  screaming  pack.  After  the 
Revolutionary  war  was  over,  in  1  783,  General  Lafayette 
sent  to  General  Washington  a  pack  of  French  stag  hounds 
of  great  size,  and  the  hounds  were  used  by  the  General  for 
fox  hunting.  The  pack  numbered  twenty-six  couples  and 
they  were  so  fierce  that  it  is  said  no  one  dared  go  near 
them  without  a  lash.  The  General's  favorite  mount  was  a 
blue  roan  horse  called  "Buckskin,"  while  "Billy"  Lee, 
the  huntsman,  rode  "Chinkling,"  a  great  jumper,  and  car- 
ried a  French  horn.  This  French  horn  must  have  been 
a  special  compliment  to  General  Lafayette,  but  I  have 
no  doubt  that  following  the  Revolutionary  war  every- 
thing  was   anti-English,    the    feeling   even   being   carried   to 


Page   I  \\  only-eight 


such  an  extent,  I  am  informed,  that  the  rule  of  the  road 
was  changed  so  that  Americans  drove  to  the  right  instead 
of  to  the  left,  as  they  did  and  still  do  in  Great  Britain. 

Mr.  Custis  writes  that  the  foxes  were  all  gray  except 
one  huge  black  fox,  which  after  seven  or  eight  hard  runs 
was  let  alone  for  the  reason  that  he  was  thought  to  resem- 
ble, not  only  in  color,   but  disposition,   the  fiend  incarnate. 

"Of  the  French  hounds,"  writes  Mr.  Custis,  "there  was 
one  named  'Vulcan,'  and  I  bear  him  in  better  reminiscence 
from  having  often  bestrid  his  ample  back  in  the  days  of 
juvenility." 

In  stating  that  the  foxes  were  all  gray  with  the  excep- 
tion of  one  black  fox,  Mr.  Custis  evidently  alludes  to  the 
period  before  the  Revolution,  for  it  is  known  that  after 
1 779  red  foxes  were  plentiful  in  the  country  around 
Mt.  Vernon. 

Despite  the  prejudice  of  the  Quakers  in  Pennsylvania, 
fox  hunting  seemed  to  have  taken  hold  of  its  people  around 
1  750,  and  it  is  known  that  a  red  fox  was  killed  in  Perry 
County,  Pa.,  in  1  789.  In  1  766  the  first  organized  hunt 
club  in  America  was  founded  by  the  citizens  of  Phila- 
delphia and  the  farmers  who  lived  across  the  river  in  New 
Jersey,  the  club  being  known  as  the  Gloucester  Fox  Hunt- 
ing Club,  and  the  exact  date  of  the  organization  being 
December  1  3,  1  766.  The  preliminary  meeting  took  place 
at  the  old  Philadelphia  Coffee  House,  on  the  corner  of 
Front  and  Market  Streets,  and  about  1 25  names  were 
enrolled,  among  them  being  the  most  prominent  citizens 
of  Philadelphia  and  New  Jersey.  From  this  Gloucester 
Fox  Hunting  Club  sprung  practically  all  the  hunt  clubs 
around  Philadelphia,  notably  the  Rose  Tree,  the  Lima, 
the  Radnor  and  the  Brandywine,  of  which  latter  Mr. 
Charles   E.    Mather  is  the   present   master. 

Mr.  Mather  and  Mr.  A.  Henry  Higginson,  master  of 
Middlesex,  and  Major  Wadsworth,  of  the  Genesee,  have 
done  more  for  the  English  hound  in  America  than  any  other 
sportsmen,   having  imported  and  bred  the  very  best  of  the 


Page   twenty-nine 


English  strain.  The  Radnor  pack  is  composed  of  hounds 
half  English,  half  American,  while  most  of  the  other  packs 
of  Pennsylvania,  although  known  as  American  packs, 
enjoy  a  large  infusion  of  pure  English  blood.  Fox  hunting 
at  the  present  time  is  probably  on  a  better  footing  in  Penn- 
sylvania than  in  any  other  State,  with  the  single  exception 
of  Virginia. 

The  next  fox  hunting  club  to  be  founded  was  the 
Brooklyn  Hunt,  which  is  known  to  have  existed  in  1781. 
The  forerunner  of  this  pack  was  maintained  and  hunted 
at  Hempstead  by  John  Evers,  in  1  770,  of  whom  I  have 
spoken  before.  The  Revolutionary  war  must  have  put 
an  end  to  Mr.  Evers'  establishment,  and  so  the  New  York 
sportsmen  rallied  to  the  Brooklyn  Hunt,  of  which  there  is 
little  known  except  that  a  meeting  took  place  on 
November  19,  1781,  at  "The  Narrows"  (now  Fort  Ham- 
ilton), and  that  a  guinea  was  offered  for  a  good,  strong 
bagged  fox. 

Fox  hunting  around  New  York  was  not  heard  of  again 
until  after  the  Civil  war,  when  in  1874  Frederick  Skinner 
and  Joseph  Donohue  maintained  a  pack  of  fox  hounds  at 
Hackensack,  in  Jersey.  Messrs.  Skinner  and  Donohue 
belonged  to  the  old-fashioned,  unfashionable  type  of  fox 
hunters  who  laid  on  their  hounds,  then  climbed  into  a 
buggy  and  followed  as  best  they  could,  knowing  the  coun- 
try and  pretty  generally  getting  in  at  the  death.  The 
fame  of  the  Hackensack  pack,  however,  spread  abroad 
and  soon  sportsmen  from  New  York  began  to  attend  the 
meets.  Some  of  these  city  people  had  hunted  in  England, 
and  soon  the  demand  was  made  that  a  club  should  be 
organized  and  a  pack  purchased,  and  so  in  1877  Mr. 
Gray  Griswold  went  abroad  and  purchased  an  Irish  pack 
of  harriers.  On  his  return  the  pack  was  housed  at 
Meadowbrook,  and  the  club  was  christened  the  Queen 
County  Hounds.  Even  as  late  as  this  period  there  was 
some  opposition  among  the  Quaker  farmers  to  hunting,  but 
the   spirit   soon   disappeared    and   from    the   Queen    County 


Page  thirty 


beginning  sprung  the  Meadowbrook   Hunt,  the   Monmouth 
Hunt,  the  Rockaway  Hunt  and  half  a  dozen  others. 

New  York,  however,  cannot  be  passed  by  without 
speaking  especially  of  the  Genesee  Valley  Hunt,  of  which 
Major  W.  Austin  Wadsworth  is  master.  Major  Wads- 
worth's  father.  General  Wadsworth,  learned  from  the  Fitz- 
hughs  of  Virginia  the  art  of  fox  hunting  and  passed  it  on 
to  his  son,  who  in  1876  became  master  of  the  Genesee 
Valley  Hunt.  Major  Wadsworth  has  hunted  hounds, 
therefore,  for  nearly  forty  years,  and  during  that  time  has 
built  up  his  pack  by  importation  and  drafts  from  The 
Meath  in  1880,  from  Lord  Fitzhardinge  in  1884,  Mr. 
Fernies  in    1887  and  The  Holderness  in   1894. 


Page  thirty-one 


LARKING 

When  a  modern  fox   hunter  c'annot  get  enoiiK^h  exercise  in   riding 

after  hounds  he  Jumps  fen<'es  during  "<'lie<-ks,"  mueli 

to   tlie  disgust  of  tlie  ancient  fraternity. 


CHAPTER    VI. 

A^en^  Hunts  Organized  in  the  Northern  States. 

In  Massachusetts  the  sport  of  fox  hunting  was  unknown 
until  1866,  when  Mr.  E.  F.  Bowditch,  of  Millwood, 
known  in  Massachusetts  as  "The  Father  of  Fox  Hunting," 
organized  a  pack.  His  example  was  followed  by  the 
Myopia  Hunt  in  1879,  the  Norfolk  Hunt  in  1895  and 
by  the  Middlesex  Hunt  in  1897.  Middlesex  is  probably 
as  well  known  as  any  hunt  in  America  on  account  of  the 
vast  amount  of  time,  trouble  and  money  that  the  master, 
Mr.  Higginson,  has  expended  in  building  up  an  English 
pack  of  the  very  first  class. 

Before  returning  to  the  various  packs  in  Virginia  and 
Maryland  of  the  second  and  third  periods,  I  will  briefly 
tell  of  the  packs  that  are  now  maintained  in  other  localities, 
only  mentioning  those  which  are  regularly  organized  and 
which  come  directly  or  indirectly  under  the  direction  of  the 
National  Hunt  and  Steeplechase  Association. 

In  the  State  of  Illinois  there  are  two  hunts — the 
Owentsia,  organized  in  1901,  and  the  Midlothia,  organized 
in  1903.  Both  of  these  packs,  I  am  informed,  furnish 
excellent  sport  and  are  well  maintained. 

In  Missouri  there  is  the  Missouri  Hunt  and  Polo  Club 
of  Kansas  City,  organized  in  1902.  This  club  has  one 
of  the  most  complete  kennels  in  America. 

In  New  Hampshire  but  one  club  is  maintained — the 
Portsmouth  Hunt,  founded  in  1885  by  Dr.  A.  C.  Hef- 
finger,  a  Virginian,  who  returned  to  fox  hunting  after  hav- 
ing served  in  the  Navy. 

Across  the  line  in  Vermont  is  the  Shelbourne  Hunt,  on 
the  borders  of  Lake  Champlain.  Mr.  J.  Watson  Webb 
is  master  and  the  kennels  contain  fifteen  couples  of  English 
hounds. 

Ohio  is  represented  by  the  Chagrin  Valley  Hunt,  of 
which  Mr.   W.   T.   White  is  master. 

In  Kentucky,  which  boasts  any  number  of  private  packs. 


Paga   thirty-thiee 


the  recognized  hunt  is  the  Iroquois  Club,  of  which  General 
Roger  D.  Wilhams  is  master.  The  club  rides  behind 
American  hounds  exclusively  and,  indeed,  among  the 
many  crack  packs  of  Kentucky  there  will  be  found  only 
the  American  hound,  although  there  are  but  few  estab- 
lishments which  have  not  introduced  in  recent  years  a  strain 
of  the  pure  bred  English  fox  hound. 

Out  on  the  Pacific  slope,  Oregon  was  the  first  State 
to  introduce  fox  hunting,  the  pack  being  known  as  the 
Portland  Hunt,  of  which  Mr.  McGrath  is  master,  the 
hounds  being  American.  This  club  was  founded  in  1901. 
However,  it  was  not  many  years  before  Washington  State 
became  interested  in  the  sport,  and  the  Seattle  Hunt  Club 
was  founded  in  1910.  This  organization  has  been  recog- 
nized by  the  National  Hunt  and  Steeplechase  Association 
during  the  present  year,    1911. 

In  Georgia,  while  there  are  many  private  packs,  there 
are  but  two  recognized  packs — the  Chatham  Hunt,  of 
Savannah,  of  which  Mr.  John  K.  Culver  is  M.  F.  H.,  and 
the  Eleventh  Cavalry  Hunt,  of  Fort  Oglethorpe,  the  only 
hunt  club  maintained  by  the  United  States  Army.  This 
club  has  as  its  master,  huntsmen  and  whip  officers  of  the 
cavalry  regiment  stationed  at  Fort  Oglethorpe.  The  hounds 
present  an  excellent  appearance  and  the  sport  has  found 
great    favor   among   the   horsemen   around   Atlanta. 

In  South  Carolina  Mr.  Hitchcock's  hounds,  a  private 
pack  at  Aiken,  represent  the  State.  Mr.  Hitchcock,  who 
is  one  of  the  best  known  sportsmen  in  America,  and  who 
has  played  a  most  important  part  in  fox  hunting,  both  in 
England  and  in  Long  Island,  maintains  an  American  pack. 
The  country  around  Aiken  is  flat  and  sandy  and  there 
are  few  fences,  but  excellent  sport  is  furnished  for  the 
most  part  to  northern  visitors  who  spend  the  winter  at 
Aiken.  In  this  connection  I  might  as  well  say  that  there 
are  but  two  recognized  private  packs  in  America — the 
one  that  I  have  just  mentioned,  known  as  Mr.  Hitchcock's 
hounds,    and    a    pack    known    as    Mr.    Maddox's    hounds, 


Pas'o   t  hilly- lour 


belonging  to  Mr.  James  K.  Maddox,  of  Warrenton,  Va., 
who  IS  not  only  a  keen  follower  behind  hounds  but  is  one 
of  the  best  gentleman  riders  between  the  flags  in  America. 

In  North  Carolina  there  are  several  private  packs  dating 
back  as  far  as  the  old  Raleigh  Hunt  Club  of  I  828.  This 
club,  which  was  really  no  club  at  all,  but  a  party  of  gen- 
tlemen who  hunted  together,  has  long  since  passed  out  of 
existence.  Under  the  date  of  December  I  3,  1 829,  one 
of  the  members  of  the  club  gives  a  description  of  a  chase 
that  results  in  the  death  of  the  fox  at  a  Mr.  Alfred  Lane's. 
He  tells  that  the  hunt  was  in  honor  of  a  Maryland  gentle- 
man, Mr.  D.  Barnum,  who  was  in  at  the  death,  and 
names  among  those  present  the  Messrs  Haywood,  General 
Beverley  Daniel  and  Charles  Marley,  afterwards  governor 
of  the  State.  He  adds  these  words,  showing  that  the  red 
fox  up  to  1829  had  not  reached  North  Carolina:  "We 
have  no  reds  among  us,  all  ours  being  grays."  The  Turf 
Register  of  1 830,  however,  records  the  fact  that  Raleigh 
Club  declined  a  challenge  from  the  Smithfield  Club  (N. 
C),  the  challenge  being  for  ten  "dogs"  a  side,  two  morn- 
ings, and  the  points  of  the  match  to  be  "striking,  trailing, 
fleetness  and  closeness." 

At  present  there  is  a  pack  maintained  at  Pinehurst,  a 
summer  resort  in  North  Carolina,  and  the  sport  very  much 
resembles  that  given  by  Mr.  Hitchcock's  hounds  at  Aiken. 


Page  thirty-five 


CHAPTER    VII. 
In  Virginia  and  Mar])land. 

Coming  now  to  Maryland,  which  divides  with  Virginia 
the  honor  of  being  the  birthplace  of  fox  hunting  in  America, 
the  Baltimore  Hunt  Club  demands  the  highest  considera- 
tion for  the  reason  that  for  many  years  this  organization 
furnished  the  very  best  sport  in  America.  There  were 
more  red  foxes  in  this  section  than  in  any  other  and  the 
sportsmen  were  not  only  keen  but  hospitable,  inviting  many 
prominent  Virginians  and  other  hunters  to  take  part  in  the 
chase.  The  club  seems  to  have  been  keenly  alive  to  the 
importance  of  keeping  the  pack  up  to  a  high  standard,  for 
there  are  many  records  of  hounds  imported  from  England. 
As  late  as  I  830  the  newspapers  announce  that  among  the 
important  arrivals  at  Baltimore  is  "one  fox  hound  bitch, 
the  leader  of  Lord  Doneghal's  pack,  with  five  pups  by  his 
crack  dog;  the  hound  and  the  pups  for  the  Baltimore  Hunt 
and  all  sent  in  by  Mr.  Adair." 

From  Baltimore  to  Washington  the  charm  of  fox 
hunting  spread,  and  a  pack  was  purchased  by  the  residents 
of  that  city  some  time  about  1825.  It  is  said  that  the 
hounds  were  imported  from  England  by  the  British  Am- 
bassador but  they  were  not  long  kept  together,  the  sport 
being  furnished  by  gentlemen  owning  private  packs  in 
Maryland  and  Virginia. 

According  to  the  American  Turf  Register  of  the  years 
1 829  and  1 830,  the  red  foxes  about  this  time  did  not 
furnish  as  excellent  sport  as  they  had  done  a  score  of 
years  previous,  and  many  sportsmen  wrote  to  the  editor. 
Colonel  Skinner,  declaring  that  the  red  fox  was  not  as 
game  an  animal  as  it  had  been.  It  is  hardly  fair  to 
believe  this  statement  of  the  case,  but  I  think  that  the 
real  reason  of  red  foxes  being  killed  in  shorter  time  and  in 
less  distance  than  during  General  Washington's  hunting 
days  was  because  hounds  had  been  vastly  improved  and 
were   better    able    to    run    into    their    foxes    than    were    the 


Page   thiity-six 


mongrels  of  which  many  of  the  early  packs  were  composed. 
In  addition  to  this  the  country  was  becoming  yearly  more 
open,  giving  the  hounds  an  advantage  which  they  did  not 
previously   possess. 

Many  volumes  could  be  written  about  the  fox  hunts 
that  took  place  in  Maryland  and  Virginia  up  to  the  time 
of  the  Civil  war;  of  a  great  circle  of  hunts  in  which  the 
packs  of  Captain  Turret,  General  Gibson,  Mr.  Chichester 
and  Mr.  Darnes  were  joined,  and  such  as  the  hunt  which 
took  place  on  New  Year's  Day,  1  830,  when  the  citizens 
of  Jefferson,  Berkeley  and  Loudoun  Counties,  of  Virginia, 
and  Washington  County,  of  Maryland,  met,  one  thousand 
strong,  at  Whitings  Neck  and  chased  a  red  fox  with  a 
pack  of  150  fox  hounds.  The  last  sentence  of  the  invita- 
tion to  this  hunt  reads  as  follows:  "No  cur  dogs  permitted 
to  enter  the  circle." 

The  story  of  one  of  these  fox  hunts  greatly  resembles 
another,  and  the  hunts  which  took  place  around  Wash- 
ington and  Baltimore  were  only  examples  of  those  which 
occurred  in  many  parts  of  both  States.  Colonel  Thomas 
H.  Carter  and  his  neighbors  maintained  an  excellent  pack 
at  "Pampetike,"  in  King  William  County,  and  up  to  the 
day  of  his  death  the  Colonel  delighted  to  tell  of  the  many 
chases  after  a  giant  fox,  named  for  the  rebel,  Nat  Turner, 
whose  body  was  ringed  with  white  and  who  was  never 
captured.  In  Albemarle  County,  at  "Castle  Hill,"  hounds 
had  been  kept  since  1  742,  when  Dr.  Thomas  Walker  im- 
ported the  first  lot  from  England.  The  gentry  of  both 
States  were  hunting  mad,  and  the  presence  of  a  pack  of 
hounds  was  the  signal  for  all  kinds  of  merriment.  Dr. 
Thomas  Nelson  Page,  in  one  of  his  sketches  of  Virginia 
life,  has  pictured  the  scene  of  a  fox  hunt  in  Virginia,  which 
describes  the  sport  of  the  day  in  a  way  that  brings  it  to 
one's  very  eyes.      He  writes: 

"The  chief  sport,  however,  was  fox  hunting.  It  was, 
in  season,  almost  universal.  Who  that  lived  in  that  time 
does   not   remember   the   fox   hunts — the   eager   chase   after 


Page   thirty-seven 


'grays'  or  'old  reds!'  The  grays  furnished  more  fun,  the 
reds  more  excitement.  The  grays  did  not  run  so  far,  but 
usually  kept  near  home,  going  in  a  circuit  of  six  or  eight 
miles.  'An  old  red,'  generally  so  called  irrespective  of 
age,  as  a  tribute  to  his  prowess,  might  lead  the  dogs  all 
day,  and  end  by  losing  them  as  evening  fell,  after  taking 
them  a  dead  stretch  for  thirty  miles.  The  capture  of  a 
gray  was  what  men  boasted  of ;  a  chase  after  'an  old  red' 
was  what  they  'yarned'  about.  Some  old  reds  became 
historical  characters,  and  were  as  much  discussed  in  the 
counties  they  inhabited  as  the  leaders  of  the  bar  or  the 
crack  speakers  of  the  circuit.  The  wiles  and  guiles  of 
each  veteran  were  the  pride  of  his  neighbors  and  hunters. 
Many  of  them  had  names.  Gentlemen  discussed  them  at 
their  club  dinners ;  lawyers  told  stories  about  them  in  the 
'lawyers'  rooms'  at  the  courthouses;  young  men,  while  they 
waited  for  the  preacher  to  get  well  into  the  service  before 
going  into  church,  bragged  about  them  in  the  churchyards 
on  Sundays.  There  was  one  such  that  I  remember.  He 
was  known  as  'Nat  Turner,'  after  the  notorious  leader  of 
'Nat  Turner's  Rebellion,'  who  remained  in  hiding  foi 
weeks  after  all  his  followers  were  taken. 

"Great  frolic  these  hunts  were;  for  there  were  the  pret- 
tiest girls  in  the  world  in  the  country  houses  round  about, 
and  each  young  fellow  was  sure  to  have  in  his  heart  some 
brown  or  blue-eyed  maiden  to  whom  he  had  promised  the 
brush,  and  to  whom,  with  feigned  indifference  but  with 
mantling  cheek  and  beating  heart,  he  would  carry  it  if,  as 
he  counted  on  doing,  he  should  win  it.  Sometimes  the  girls 
came  over  themselves  and  rode,  or  more  likely  were  already 
there  visiting,  and  the  beaux  simply  followed  them  by  a 
law  as  immutable  as  that  by  which  the  result  follows  the 
premises   in   a   mathematical   proposition. 

"Even  the  boys  had  their  lady  loves,  and  rode  for  them 
on  colts  or  mules;  not  the  small  girls  of  their  own  age 
(no  'little  girls'  for  them!).  Their  sweethearts  were 
grown  young  ladies,  with  smiling  eyes  and  silken  hair  and 


Page   thiily-eiglit 


graceful  mien,  whom  their  grown  cousins  courted,  and  whom 
they  with  their  boys'  hearts  worshipped.  Often  a  half- 
dozen  were  in  love  with  one — always  the  prettiest  one — 
and,  with  the  generous  spirit  of  boys  in  whom  the  selfish 
instinct  has  not  yet  wakened,  agreed  among  themselves 
that  they  should  all  ride  for  her,  and  that  whichever  got 
the  brush  should  present  it  on  behalf  of  all. 

"What  a  gallant  sight  it  was!  The  appearance  on 
the  far  hill  in  the  evening  with  their  packs  surrounding 
them!  Who  does  not  recall  the  excitement  of  the  house; 
the  arrival  in  the  yard,  with  horns  blowing,  hounds  bray- 
ing, horses  prancing  and  girls  laughing;  the  picture  of  the 
young  ladies  on  the  front  portico  with  their  arms  around 
each  other's  dainty  waists — the  slender,  pretty  figures,  the 
bright  faces,  the  sparkling  eyes,  the  gay  laughter  and 
musical  voices,  as  with  coquettish  merriment  they  chal- 
lenged the  riders,  demandmg  to  blow  the  horns  themselves 
or  to  ride  some  specially  handsome  horse  next  morning! 
The  way,  the  challenge  being  accepted,  they  trip  down 
the  steps,  some  with  little  screams  shrinking  from  the 
bounding  dogs ;  one  or  two  with  stouter  hearts,  fixed  upon 
higher  game,  bravely  ignoring  them  and  leaving  their  man- 
agement to  their  masters,  who  at  their  approach  sprang  to 
the  ground  to  meet  them,  hat  in  hand  and  the  tell-tale 
blood  mounting  to  their  sunburned  faces,  with  the  beauty 
and  pride  of   youth!" 

The  Civil  war  put  an  end  to  all  huntmg  for  four  years, 
and  at  the  end  of  this  bloody  period  the  people  of  Virginia 
and  of  Maryland  were  so  poverty-stricken  that  they  were 
unable  to  indulge  in  the  sport  as  they  had  before  the  days 
of  '61.  It  is  true  that  remnants  of  the  packs  still  re- 
mained, but  the  sport  for  several  years  lapsed  to  the  style 
of  colonial  days.  Hunting  was  indulged  in,  but  on  a 
very  small  scale,  and  many  sportsmen  were  forced  to  join 
their  one  or  two  couples  of  hounds  to  form  a  pack.  This 
condition  of  affairs  brought  about  the  club  system  of  fox 
hunting. 


Page  thirtv-niiie 


Prior  to  the  war  there  had  been  no  organized  clubs  in 
Virginia,  and  the  fact  is  easily  accounted  for  when  one 
remembers  that  each  country  house  in  the  State  was  prac- 
tically a  club  house  open  to  the  friends  of  its  owner. 
Every  country  gentleman  who  mamtained  a  pack  of  hounds 
welcomed  any  neighbor,  and  these  m  turn  would  pass  on 
and  hunt  with  some  other  neighbor's  pack,  so  that  until 
the  North  and  South  were  at  odds,  a  Virginia  or  Maryland 
sportsman  could  secure  a  run  every  day  of  the  week. 
This  picture  of  hospitality  disappeared  with  Lee's  sur- 
render at  Appomattox  and  gradually  a  new  order  of  things 
prevailed  in  fox  hunting.  Clubs  began  to  be  formed  so 
that  many  sportsmen  could  share  the  expense  of  maintain- 
ing the  pack,  and  in  this  way  the  hunt  organizations  of 
Maryland  and  Virginia  were  formed.  In  Virginia  this 
mode  of  hunting  was  further  promoted  by  the  advent  of  a 
number  of  Englishmen,  many  of  whom  were  keen  sportsmen. 

In  Maryland  the  Elkridge  came  into  existence  in  1  878, 
the  Green  Spring  Valley  in  1892,  the  Patapsco  in  1898, 
the  Dunblam,  just  out  of  Washmgton,  in  1895,  and  t^he 
Chevy  Chase,  supported  by  Washington  patronage,  in 
1  892.  One  of  the  moving  spirits  in  Maryland  hunting  of 
the  present  day  is  Mr.  Redmond  C.  Stewart,  a  sportsman 
who  has  striven  long  and  earnestly  to  build  up  fox  hunting 
m  America.  As  master  of  the  Green  Sprmg  Valley  he 
has  some  thirty-seven-and-a-half  couple  of  hounds  m  his 
kennels,  for  the  most  part  American,  but  some  containing 
a  strain  of  pure  bred  English. 

Over  near  Washington,  the  Dunblain  Hunt  has  ceased 
to  exist,  its  successor  being  the  Chevy  Chase.  A  queer 
incident  in  connection  with  the  Dunblain  Hunt  was  that  its 
huntsman  was  a  Frenchman,  the  Comte  de  Jamtelle.  It 
is  said  that  despite  his  Parisian  birth,  this  gentleman  fur- 
nished excellent  sport  to  the  Washington  riders.  The 
pioneer  pack,  however,  at  the  National  Capital  after  the 
Civil  war,  was  kept  by  a  Mr.  Haskins,  a  grocer,  in  1870, 
who  had  the  heart  of  a  true  follower  of  hounds. 


Page   forty 


In  Virginia,  without  reckoning  the  half  hundred  private 
packs  that  are  still  in  existence  all  over  the  State,  there 
are  at  present  nineteen  packs  recognized  by  the  National 
Hunt  and  Steeplechase  Association,  and  when  one  remem- 
bers that  there  are  but  fifty-seven  recognized  packs  in  the 
whole  United  States,  the  inference  follows  that  fox  hunting 
is  more  firmly  established  in  Virginia  than  in  any  other 
section  of  the  country.  A  hst  of  the  Virginia  hunts  com- 
prises the  Albemarle,  the  Blue  Ridge,  the  Cassanova  Hunt, 
the  Castle  Hill,  the  Cobbler,  the  Deep  Run,  the  Gaston, 
the  Keswick,  the  Loudoun,  the  Lynchburg,  the  Middleburg, 
Mr.  Maddox,  the  Oak  Ridge,  the  Orange  County,  the 
Piedmont,  the  Remlik,  the  Riverside,  the  Tomahawk,  and 
the  Warrenton. 

Of  these  clubs  the  Castle  Hill,  Deep  Run  and  Gaston 
use  English  packs,  the  other  clubs  riding  behind  so-called 
American  packs,  although  almost  in  every  case  the  hounds 
are  either  half-breed — that  is  to  say,  American-English — 
or  possess  a  large  infusion  of  English  blood.  The  principal 
hunting  center  in  Maryland  is  around  Baltimore  and  out- 
side of  Washington,  while  in  Virginia  the  best  hunting  is 
found  around  Gordonsville,  Charlottesville,  Leesburg  and 
Warrenton. 

Among  the  Virginia  fox  hunters,  especially  those  of  the 
old  school,  the  organized  clubs  are  not  held  in  high  esteem. 
The  old  time  sportsman  has  a  great  contempt  for  a  pink 
coat  and  the  mere  mention  of  a  "drag,"  which,  by  the  way, 
means  "scent,"  is  like  a  red  rag  to  a  bull,  and  so  many 
of  them  form  coteries  of  their  own,  making  pilgrimages  to 
the  haunts  of  the  red  fox  and  hunting  in  the  good  old- 
fashioned  way  that  prevailed  before  the  time  of  the  Civil 
war.  Among  the  best  known  of  these  old  fox  hunters 
are  Mr.  Sneed,  of  North  Carolina,  and  Judge  Aiken,  of 
Danville,  Va.,  who  yearly  camp  together  on  Roanoke  River 
and  make  the  red  foxes  run  for  their  lives.  In  a  recent  letter 
Judge  Aiken,  speaking  of  fox  hunters,  describes  the  chivalry 
of  the  clan.      He  says: 


Page  forty-one 


"I  have  known  many  fox  hunters  and  have  run  many 
packs.  The  hound  is  my  favorite  animal,  and  there  is  a 
bond  of  unison  between  all  fox  hunters  and  me.  They 
are  pleasant  companions  and  manly  men  as  a  general  thing. 
Captain  W.  P.  Graves  was  the  best  manager  of  hounds  in 
the  field  I  ever  hunted  with,  and  he  knew  more  about 
hounds.  He  was  as  refined  and  gentle  as  a  knight,  and  1 
never  heard  him  run  down  another  man's  dog,  and  when 
others  beat  his  he  always  praised  them  and  said  he  wouldn't 
tell  a  lie  on  a  dog.  He  had  a  charming  voice,  and  when 
a  hard  run  pack  heard  it  they  took  fresh  life." 

It  is  the  fashion  to  declare  that  nothing  is  as  good  now 
as  it  was  in  by-gone  days,  but  this  fashion  smacks  of  truth 
regarding  fox  hunting.  I  remember  very  distinctly  hunt- 
ing in  the  Isle  of  Wight  County  on  February  6,  1905, 
with  Mr.  Julius  Octavius  Thomas,  who  on  that  day  cele- 
brated his  seventy-first  birthday,  and  also  celebrated  on  the 
same  date  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  his  mastership  of 
hounds.  For  a  half  century  he  had  hunted  regularly  every 
season  in  Four  Square,  his  ancestral  home,  except  during 
the  four  years  of  the  war,  and  the  hounds  behind  which 
we  rode  in  1 905  were  the  descendants  of  the  pack  which 
the  old  gentleman  hunted  in  1855.  I  quote  from  The  Times 
Dispatch  a  brief  description  of  the  day's  hunt  which  re- 
sulted in  the  deatti  of  a  game  red  fox. 

"A  half  century  of  fox  hunting  by  the  same  master  of 
hounds,  with  a  pack  made  up  of  the  descendants  of  the 
original  pack,  and  with  grandsons  ridmg  in  the  place  of 
their  grandfathers  of  fifty  years  before,  marked  an  occasion 
without  parallel  in  the  annals  of  sport  in  this  country.  The 
very  hunting  horns  (old  cow  horns)  belonged  to  days  of 
long  ago,  having  been  the  property  of  those  sportsmen,  long 
since  dead,  who  rode  and  cheered  the  hounds  in  the  days 
when  the  master  of  Four  Square  was  but  a  boy  and  the 
last  century  was  in  its  middle  age.  " 

Another  grand  old  sportsman  was  Colonel  Richard 
Hunter   Dulany,   of   Welbourne   in   Loudoun   County,   who 


I'ago    Idrty-lwi) 


died  in  1 906,  having  hunted  practically  all  of  the  eighty- 
live  years  of  his  life.  Colonel  Dulany  was  an  ardent 
sportsman  of  the  very  best  and  highest  type.  He  main- 
tained the  Piedmont  pack  at  his  own  expense,  and  he  never 
saw  the  fence  so  high  nor  the  brook  so  broad  that  he  would 
not  have  a  try  at  it.  It  was  Colonel  Dulany  who  intro- 
duced the  Horse  Show  into  America  before  1  850,  and  his 
nephew,  Rozier  Dulany,  of  Washington,  has  a  cup  won  by 
the  Colonel  at  the  Upperville  Colt  Show  in  1850.  I  recall 
at  the  American-English  Hound  Trials  in  Piedmont  Valley 
in  1905,  when  Mr.  Harry  W.  Smith  matched  his  Grafton 
pack  of  American  hounds  against  Mr.  A.  H.  Higginson's 
Middlesex  pack  of  English  hounds  for  $1,000  a  side  and 
a  cup,  that  Colonel  Dulany  cut  his  wire  fences  seven 
miles  down  the  Valley  in  order  that  the  sportsmen  might  not 
be  impeded.  This  hound  match  possibly  called  together 
the  most  representative  gathering  of  fox  hunters  of  recent 
times,  for  at  many  of  the  meets  there  were  from  seventy-five 
to  eighty-five  persons  all  superbly  mounted  and  nearly  all 
sporting  pink,  while  representatives  of  twenty-six  hunts  wit- 
nessed the  match,  won  by  Mr.  Smith's  pack,  although  Mr. 
Higginson's  hounds  furnished  such  excellent  sport  that 
many  clubs  thereafter  adopted  the  English  hound. 

Over  the  very  country  where  this  match  took  place 
occurred  some  thirty  years  ago  a  sporting  event  which 
attracted  wide  attention.  Mr.  Hal  Dulany,  son  of  Colonel 
Dulany,  on  his  return  from  England,  where  he  had  been 
hunting,  declared  that  he  could  follow  the  Piedmont  pack 
over  the  stone  walls  of  Loudoun  County  and  could  live  with 
the  hounds  to  the  end.  A  wager  was  made  and  a  date 
was  set.  Mr.  Dulany  secured  a  very  fast  and  seasoned 
thoroughbred,  placed  him  in  a  trainer's  hands,  who  not 
only  conditioned  him  but  schooled  him  perfectly  over  the 
jumps.  The  hunter  being  in  perfect  condition,  Mr.  Du- 
lany said  that  he  was  ready,  and  the  match  was  on.  It 
is  said  that  for  fifteen  long  minutes  Mr.  Dulany  lived  with 
the  hounds,  but  after  that  time  they  disappeared  into  thin 


Page   forty-three 


a 


air,  and  the  thoroughbred  was  "all  in."  Since  this  occa- 
sion there  has  been  no  sportsman  bold  enough  to  declare 
that  he  can  live  with  American  hounds  over  the  Piedmont 
country.  I  recall  an  incident  in  fox  hunting  which  I  believe 
has  never  been  equalled  in  any  country.  During  a  fox  hunt 
in  Gloucester  County,  Va.,  the  huntsman  had  occasion  to 
cross  York  River,  which  is  three-quarters  of  a  mile  wide. 
There  being  no  ferry,  he  leaped  his  horse  into  an  ordinary 
row  boat,  from  three  feet  of  water,  had  his  hounds  scramble 
into  the  boat,  and  made  the  trip  across  in  safety. 


Pago   forty-five 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

Hunting  Notes. 

It  may  not  be  amiss  before  ending  this  article  to  say  a 

word  about  the  cost  of  maintaining  packs  of   hounds.      In 

early  days  it  wa«  not  an  extravagance  to  keep  a  pack,  and 

even  now  small  packs  may  be  maintained  for  a  reasonable 
amount.       But    the    great    and    fashionable    packs    cost    the 

masters  a  small  fortune  every  season.  In  1  770  Mr.  John 
Evers,  as  I  have  already  stated,  imported  a  pack  together 
with  horses  and  hunt  servants,  from  England,  and  to  this 
pack  Colonel  Washington  was  a  subscriber.  The  mere 
mention  of  this  importation  strikes  terror  to  the  hearts  of 
those  who  are  not  wealthy,  but  the  fact  is  that  the  main- 
tenance of  hounds  in  that  day  was  of  no  very  great  mo- 
ment, and  I  doubt  if  Mr.  Evers'  pack  cost  him  as  much 
as  $3,000  a  year.  The  famous  Belvoir  pack,  of  England, 
which  has  been  for  generations  owned  by  the  Dukes  of 
Rutland,  cost  for  the  season  of  1786  only  £775  10s,  or 
less  than  $4,000,  and  in  the  establishment  were  eleven 
horses,  three  hunt  servants  and  a  dog  feeder.  The  hunts- 
man received  as  his  salary  £49  14s,  or  less  than  $250  a 
year,  although  he  was  the  crack  of  all  England.  In  order 
to  show,  however,  how  the  keep  of  hounds  has  increased, 
it  is  only  necessary  to  mention  that  the  Quorn  pack  cost 
in  1901  £6,255,  and  that  the  probable  cost  of  the  Belvoir 
or  Quorn  at  the  present  time  exceed  £8,000  or  $40,000. 
The  question  of  the  origin  of  the  scarlet  or  pink  coat 
has  been  so  often  asked  that  I  have  endeavored  to  learn 
how  it  was  introduced  as  the  emblem  of  fox  hunting.  The 
origin,  however,  is  not  known,  and  this  despite  a  search  of 
all  the  sporting  historians.  There  is  a  legend  to  the  effect 
that  King  Henry  the  Second  ordered  that  those  who  rode 
to  the  chase  should  wear  a  pink  coat  and  that  they  should 
be  taxed  accordingly,  but  this  story  has  been  pronounced 
absurd.  It  is  known,  however,  that  the  pink  dinner  coat 
was   introduced   by   the   Meltonian   dandies  of   the   English 


Page   forty-six 


shires  who  dishked  the  custom  of  dining  after  a  hard  run 
in  soiled  pink  riding  coats,  and  who  changed  to  a  pink 
evening  coat  before  sitting  down  to  dinner. 

Of  course  there  are  many  hunts  both  in  America  and  in 
England  that  sport  some  color  other  than  pink  as  a  livery. 
This  custom  springs  from  the  habit  of  using  the  family 
color  for  the  hunt. 

The  question  of  the  introduction  of  top  boots  is  also  of 
some  interest,  and  it  seems  to  be  the  opinion  of  sporting 
writers  that  in  the  early  days  the  riders  wore  high  boots 
pulled  over  the  knees,  and  gradually  the  custom  came  about 
to  turn  down  the  boot  inside  out  around  the  calf  of  the  leg, 
this  inside,  sometimes  tan,  sometimes  pink  and  sometimes 
green,  brought  about  the  various  styles  of  tops  for  hunting 
boots. 

I  have  used  freely  in  this  article  the  Turf  Register,  the 
works  of  Dr.  Philip  Alexander  Bruce,  Dr.  Thomas  Nelson 
Page,  Beverley's  "History  of  Virginia,"  Scarf's  "History 
of  Maryland,  "  A.  J.  Bradley's  "Sketches  from  Old  Vir- 
ginia," "The  Hunts  of  the  United  States  and  Canada," 
by  A.  Henry  Higginson  and  Julian  Ingersoll  Chamberlin, 
The  Edinburgh  Revieiv,  "Hunting,"  by  the  Duke  of 
Beaufort;  "Hunting,"  by  J.  O.  Pagett;  "Kings  of  the 
Hunting  Field,"  by  Thormanby ;  "The  Quorn  Hunt  and 
Its  Master,"  by  W.  C.  A.  Blew;  "The  Records  of  the 
Virginia  Colonies,"  "The  Dividing  Line,"  by  William 
Byrd;  "Four  Square  and  Fox  Hunting,"  by  R.  S.  Thomas; 
outing  magazines,  and  numerous  books  from  the  library  of 
Colonel  W.  Gordon  McCabe. 


Page  forty-seven 


Wlriister  Family  Library  ot  Voiefinary  M«d»cine 

Cummings  School  of  Veterinary  Madione  ?• 

Tufls  University 

200  Westl3oro  Road 

North  Gralten.  MA  01536 


